Many of you probably remember a much publicized missile test, conducted on February 18, 2004. The Rocket Forces reportedly tested a new missile warhead, which, in President Putin's words, were capable "hitting targets at an intercontinental depth," "with a hypersonic speed, high precision and the opportunity of deep manoeuvre in terms of height and course". It was heralded as Russia's response to the U.S. missile defense and the Russian military proudly claimed that the new warhead can penetrate any missile defense system.

Details of the test have never been officially (or otherwise) disclosed, but it is belived that the new weapon in question was a maneuverable warhead for the SS-19/UR-100NUTTH missile (although some reports say it was a SS-25/Topol missile warhead).

It turns out that the test may not be quite the success it was reported at the time. Yuri Solomonov, the General Designer of the Moscow Instinute of Thermal Technology, is reported as saying that the warhead burned up in atmosphere over the Svobodnyy launch site.

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Comments

The funny thing is that any reports of russian advanced militarty technology always come upon a favourable ground in the west - i.e. westerners tend to search for a "Russian Wunderwaffe". This time too, rumours about state of the art, space-like technology utilizied in the design of the new warhead swept over media in an attempt to convince people, that "we knew the russians had something evil and powerful". This situation reminds me of other similar from the past, of which one is the most telling. When Kursk submarine sank in August 2000, speculations began to surface just as the salvage operation was getting near. The first of the entire series was, that the submarine was some kind of an experimental, huge-unlike any others design, then it was about "super-high advanced" antiship missiles that it carried, and finally it was about "ultra high-technology" torpedoes that it had on board. It was just as if some of the media could not bear the fact that it was just a regular, nuclear powered submarine of a well known project. This sort of attitude can be best described as a "Firefox syndrom", from the 1980's Clint Eastwood's hit about stealing russian fighter, which sophistication level went three generations ahead, for some reason.